2024 could be world's hottest year as June breaks records
Kyiv • UNN
Last month was the hottest June on record, continuing a 13-month streak of exceptional temperatures, which could make 2024 the hottest year on record.
Last month was the hottest June on record, continuing a string of exceptional temperatures that some scientists believe puts 2024 on track to be the world's hottest year on record among recorded, citing data from the EU's climate change monitoring service Reuters reported on Monday, writes UNN.
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Every month from June 2023 - 13 months in a row - is considered the hottest on the planet since records began, compared to the corresponding month in previous years, the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) said in its monthly bulletin.
According to the latest data, 2024 could surpass 2023 as the hottest year since records began to be kept amid man-made climate change and the natural weather phenomenon El Niño, which have driven temperatures to record highs for the year, some scientists say.
"I estimate that there is about a 95 percent chance that 2024 will surpass 2023 to become the hottest year since global surface temperature records began in the mid-1800s," said Zeke Hausfather, a researcher with the U.S. nonprofit organization Berkeley Earth.
Climate change has already caused catastrophic consequences worldwide in 2024.
More than 1,000 people died in the brutal heat wave during the Hajj last month. Heat-related deaths were recorded in New Delhi, which experienced an unprecedentedly long heat wave, and among tourists in Greece.
Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London, said there was a "high probability" that 2024 would be the hottest year on record.
"El Niño is a natural phenomenon that will always come and go. We can't stop El Niño, but we can stop burning oil, gas and coal," she said.
The natural El Niño phenomenon, which warms surface waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean, tends to raise global average temperatures.
This effect has weakened in recent months, with the world now in neutral conditions and cooler La Niña conditions expected to form later this year.
The C3S dataset goes back to 1940, and scientists checked it against other data to confirm that last month was the hottest June since the pre-industrial period of 1850-1900, the publication writes.
Greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are a major cause of climate change. Despite promises to curb global warming, countries have so far failed to collectively reduce these emissions, resulting in steadily rising temperatures for decades.
According to C3S, in the 12 months ending in June, the global average temperature was the highest ever recorded for any such period: 1.64 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
